Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

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At 5/3/10 04:03 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: It's an invalid point. That it happens to Extent A as opposed to the greater Extent B

2) They already paid their dues to society

What they owe is what we say they owe.

This is wrong on so many levels. First, Who the fuck is this "we"? "We" are not the State.

If you're talking about 'The people' Which I assume you are. You have to be some insane mystic to believe that the state magically invokes the will of the people through the highly controlled and manipulated electoral process which cannot by any metric come close to operating as (What you might call) democratically as the market place. Officials within the government arbitrarily set Tax rates that may or may not be in line with their campaign promises. George Bush Senior is a good example, Barrack Obama ran on the campaign promise of not raising taxes on anyone under 150,000 (or 250,000, he vacillated) Now he calls himself agnostic on the issue and ignoring tax increases in the Health care bill it's obvious he's going to have to raise Taxes on at least the top 50% of Americans, if not the majority of Americans. Of course my point is that Politicians are not contractually obligated to be honest about their campaign promises and so you cannot say, granted 'Majority rules' (i.e. might makes right) is a justification for tax policy, in spite of the fact that even in the most participatory elections only a minority of citizens actually get the candidate they want, and only a proportion of those voters very likely weren't clothespin voting, and only a proportion of those voters voted for said politician for the explicit tax policy.

And you've complained tirelessly about private companies scamming consumers with deals and products you consider shoddy and you scorn the seemingly irrational behavior of consumers from your high chair of judgment. Yet you assume by simply casting a ballot for a politician it's Alright for THEM to use that as license to do whatever they please (Voting for me means you agree to every policy I enact, even if it wasn't stated as part of my campaign platform and even if you didn't vote for me for that particular
reason) I don't advocate that buying an apple from a supermarket gives the supermarket the right to own your bowels or your kitchen or gives it a right to legitimately claim some arbitrary and absurd demand. Likewise, that 100% of the citizens who bought from a fruit company consented to buying the fruit and paying the price, this is not grounds to say that the fruit company has the right to declare itself Master of all food production, and require citizens to pay for their fruit regardless of whether they want to use it or not and prevent anyone else [with lethal force] from providing alternatives.

Second, I do not contend that 'might makes right'. If Me and 10 other gentleman (In fancy clothing and with much pomp and regalia) decided amongst 'ourselfs' that you owed 'us' Your money, our claim is no more legitimate If 1 man robbed 11 other men. We don't allow citizens privately to gang up on one another so Might makes right is not a legitimate standard for the State. Of course this is irrelevant since majority rule is a scam. The only system by which goods and services are produced with majority, no, unanimous consent is the marketplace.

There's lots of people who can't provide for themselves through bad luck and in our society, those people have to be helped out and those who CAN help out are MADE to help out.

I've already gone over how inefficient Government charities are, how there is already demand for a humane society and that said humane society will be supplied to the extent that it is demanded, and voluntary charity organizations operate more effectively even with smaller budgets, so the appeal to poverty doesn't mean anything to me. Oh, and yes, you can rely on charity. We're the single most charitable nation in the world as it stands in spite of the Taxes and in spite of the fact that with the enormous amount of government money spent on (Bureaucratic overhead) the poor, people still feel that what exists is inadequate and those individuals are paying for more efficient charities themselves. The state does not provide the poor with the means to improve themselves nor does it have any interest in doing so, period.

Clearly that doesn't work for everything.

Yes, sometimes we pay animals, computers, dirt, and other intimate objects for their services so that they can go out and buy food for their families and... Oh, wait. Nevermind.

That's taking.

Then you don't buy it. But the storeowner can't send armed men to your house if you don't pay for the goods you don't want to. Don't be childish, you already know the answer to these questions. If you can't tell the difference between Coercion and trade we might as well release anyone whose ever taken anything from anyone without their permission, murderers, rapists, thieves. Because there's no difference between Taxation and voluntary trade. That or throw everyone who's ever traded anything in jail for wrongful theft.

You might be able to opt out of buying a television in Radioshack, But I cannot opt out of the social security system unless I want to get raped in prison or have my brains blasted out. Who's exploiting who exactly?

Now if you 'take' the good and THEN refuse to pay the price that the trader demands for it, and run off with the good, then you are engaged in theft. But there is a difference between not wanting to be a part of state monopolized services and thus not wanting to pay for them, and wanting to receive state services but not wanting to pay for them.

A legal definition of extortion... "The Hobbs Act defines "extortion" as "the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right." I love the 'under color of official right' part the most.

Yeah so where does the government come in and explain his fortune?

If the state has it such that It is impossible or extremely difficult to buy a service from anyone but a single group or a group of people through barriers to entry. (Tariffs, favorite subsidies, licenses,

Well the reverse is true. You're saying it's not really important because it's not you.

I'm saying it's not important because what influence my social class has on my ideology does not twist the universe in such a way that the facts of whether or not taxes improve social utility, no more than me sitting on the surface of the earth/mars/the moon has any influence on whether or not the Galileo or Copernicus was correct. Appeals to emotion don't work on me because I haven't been given a solid refutation of the fact that the State has done nothing beneficial to the poor, What I have been given are useless anecdotes and easily refutable historical narratives that you probably learned in elementary school.

I don't argue from morality when I say that Taxation is theft, even though it is. I am pointing out that there exists a double standard in what society subjectively feels is acceptable behavior for civil society versus the state. I as a regular citizen cannot go from door to door collecting rents on land that I "Own" based on a property claim that was based on some words that I scribbled on to a piece of paper and signed, and force people off "My" land that "I" own in spite of the fact that the individuals I am harassing for money have lived on the land and worked and improved upon the land where as I and my agents have done no such thing. Nor is my claim legitimate if I Claim that I myself am a god, or a demigod, or that I channel the will of the gods, or that I an divinely sanctioned, or that I am sanctioned by the 'divine will of the people' or some other mystical bugaboo.

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If you want to make people equal, the only way to do it is to make them equally poor.

If everyone is equal, they can't be "equally poor" or "equally rich".

Yes they can. Hypothetical Society A has a normally distributed average yearly income of 500$ per year with a Standard deviation of 5$, a highly egalitarian society. (A standard deviation of 5$ means that 99 percent of the population earns between 515 and 485$ per year.

Hypothetical Society B has a normally distributed average yearly income of 50,000$ per year with a standard deviation of... say 10,000$, So that 99% of the population earns between roughly 30,000 and 80,000 Dollars. So the rich in unequally rich society B earn more than 2x as much as the poor but the poorest citizen is still richer by several orders of magnitude than the richest citizen in the 'equally poor' society.

1. I never invoked your "theory of labor" thing.

Implying that prices should be based on reality and that you define reality as the cost to produce something, is the production cost theory of value, and since all costs are the income paid to SOMEONE, it essentially is the labor theory of value.

2. I was talking about progressive taxation, which is not "discredited"
3. Appealing to economists on economy is not an "argument from authority" fallacy.

Saying that "So and so says ABC and is an expert on the topic, and for that reason alone is true" is fallacious. The premise or argument itself may or may not be true but the appeal to authority is not a valid grounds for the argument. If you said... "So and so says ABC Because XYZ, and is an expert on the topic, and for that reason alone is true." Assuming XYZ is logical, is a sound argument. But you're not even giving the reasons why ... is true. There's a reason why the fallacy is called 'appeal to authority', rather than 'appeal to village idiot'. Because the truth value of a statement remains the same whether it comes from the mouth of Sarah Palin, Pope Benedict, Steven Hawkings, You, Me, or The Mouth of Sauron.

Well I'm not an expert on economy so like in just about every other domain, I take the word of people who know what they're talking about and in the case of a split, as there always is, I'm forced to go with the majority.

Or maybe you can do some research and come to your own independent conclusions and make arguments on their own merit. I don't care if you argue from what you learn in school per-say, but that you learned it from school or from anyone or anywhere is not grounds for it validity. I don't say, ABC is true because Murray Rothbard says it is.

At 5/3/10 05:40 PM, Ravariel wrote:

Regardless of the broader aspects of marxist economics, or whether or not they've been discredited which many would argue, you're conflating two different arguments in the attempt to discredit both through the apparent weakness of one. That's intellectually dishonest, and you should know better.

I'm not conflating LTV with progressive Taxation, i explicitly stated that the Burden of proof was on me to show why progressive taxation, was bad (reread the post) But that i want to know what specific justifications he wants me to address with respect to the progressive Taxation, because I do not have the desire or the time to Attack every single one of them.

Finally, Counting the number of 'experts' who support one theory as opposed to another, never the less, is a dangerous way to find out if something is true or not. institutes and universities will hire those professors with ideological bent similar to those, and so the quest for truth simply becomes the quest to see who can get the most amount of funding.

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At 5/3/10 10:14 PM, Ytaker wrote:

Likely a lot of those schmucks didn't have it.

Like I said: biased sample. You'll only ever heard from the ones who made it. You'll never hear from the ones who didn't.

They can't push an album up to number one.

They can't turn someone with 0 talent into a star but they can push any good artist to great heights.

The majority of music is availible through a click of a button.

If you constantly hear about Lady Gaga on tv, you'll check her crap out eventually. Bam, you've just bought her music over someone else's because of something unrelated to their talent level.

People will buy the inferior product if it's the one they've heard of. That's a fact of life. I don't know why it would work any differently for entertainment and judging by the number of rap records being sold, I'd say I'd right.

She defies easy definition

It's pop music. They've been making it since the 80s.

nah, she's a pirate.

If there was no Lady Gaga, she'd still listen to exactly the same number of hours of music a day, except it would be something else.

At 5/4/10 09:24 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

This is wrong on so many levels. First, Who the fuck is this "we"? "We" are not the State.
If you're talking about 'The people'

We is the government and whether or not they got to make their decision backed by popular vote, they're still reasonably democratic and if they say the taxes are X then that's what taxes you OWE.

That's what a democracy is. There's no choice that is 100% backed up.

Yet you assume by simply casting a ballot for a politician it's Alright for THEM to use that as license to do whatever they please

And again there you go basically ignoring anything I write so you can crap out a giant patronizing rant about how you think no one but you understands how politics work.

You answer my claims with a "so you assume that" and then go on to explain why that is false even though I never said it thus wasting many many words : O

Second, I do not contend that 'might makes right'.

That's pretty weird coming from a moral relativist.
Unless I'm confusing you with sadisticmonkey or something.

I've already gone over how inefficient Government charities are,

Again your gripe always comes in the form of pointing out how X thing was done badly by the government, therefore proving governments are inherently bad somehow.

That's all I've ever heard.

"wah I don't like this pizza, it has too much cheese on it therefore pizza sucks".

Clearly that doesn't work for everything.

Yes, sometimes we pay animals, computers, dirt, and other intimate objects for their services so that they can go out and buy food for their families and... Oh, wait. Nevermind.

No, I meant you can't evaluate what a Monet painting is worth based on how much paint it took to make it.

Then you don't buy it.

Oh ok I'll just grow my own food using the shovels I built in my lavish leaf and mud mansion.

You might be able to opt out of buying a television in Radioshack, But I cannot opt out of the social security system

Do you opt out of buying water often?

If the state has it such that It is impossible or extremely difficult to buy a service from anyone but a single group or a group of people through barriers to entry. (Tariffs, favorite subsidies, licenses,

That in no way, shape or form applies to Microsoft until well after Gates was rich, as far as I know.

Well the reverse is true. You're saying it's not really important because it's not you.

IAppeals to emotion don't work on me

Yeah you just said they would if you weren't in your social class.
If you were dying of cancer, suddenly you'd be all for more government involvement in cancer cures.

But now that you're a decently well-off, healthy person in a land of freedom and opportunity, you bitch because you don't want to have to give anything away.

I am pointing out that there exists a double standard in what society subjectively feels is acceptable behavior for civil society versus the state.

Yeah taxes are kind of like theft.
But did you ever hear the story of Robin Hood? He was a thief too.

You're the one using appeals to emotion now, saying "wow this is theft and theft is bad!". The world is nuanced and there's no easy answers to "is theft always bad".

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At 5/4/10 09:43 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Yes they can. Hypothetical Society A has a normally distributed average

If everybody's poor, it's not the average that's poor, it's EVERYBODY.

Implying that prices should be based on reality and that you define reality as the cost to produce something,

Which isn't what I said.
Yay.

Saying that "So and so says ABC and is an expert on the topic, and for that reason alone is true" is fallacious.

Good thing I never said any of that.
Economists widely favor progressive taxation.

That proves only that the people who know what they're talking about agree with me and not with you.

Or maybe you can do some research and come to your own independent conclusions and make arguments on their own merit.

Which is what this topic is.

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At 5/5/10 12:24 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 5/3/10 10:14 PM, Ytaker wrote:

Likely a lot of those schmucks didn't have it.

Like I said: biased sample. You'll only ever heard from the ones who made it. You'll never hear from the ones who didn't.

This is the internet. They have blogs. They complain.

They can't push an album up to number one.

They can't turn someone with 0 talent into a star but they can push any good artist to great heights.

We're still talking about Lady Gaga? The lady who got multiple number one hits? That's greathood.

While many people might benefit from advertisement behind them, that doesn't mean that there aren't greats among those who have advertisement backing them. Lady Gaga is one of the best selling artists of all time, way above most people. One of the most enjoyed artists of all time.

The majority of music is availible through a click of a button.

If you constantly hear about Lady Gaga on tv, you'll check her crap out eventually. Bam, you've just bought her music over someone else's because of something unrelated to their talent level.

Advertisement follows success. They wouldn't show her on tv if she hadn't had multiple number one hits. They have limited cash. they can't advertise everything.

For the sort of thing you're talking about- that would be more in the, getting an endorsement by a records company. You may remember things like, how the beetles had severe difficulty getting a record company to listen to them, or how hard JK Rowling had to work to get her manuscript heard?

Your fanbase, word of mouth, is more important once people have bought it. For Lady Gaga, her gay fanbase helped spread word of her music a lot more than anything else. She also got a big boost from being similar to Christina Aguilera too. Brand recognition.

People will buy the inferior product if it's the one they've heard of. That's a fact of life. I don't know why it would work any differently for entertainment and judging by the number of rap records being sold, I'd say I'd right.

Nah. They normally just buy brand names that they trust. People learn to trust things because of performance.

Really. Just because you hate a medium of art, like rap, doesn't mean others do. I hate Lady Gaga's music, but I can still recognise that she's great.

She defies easy definition

It's pop music. They've been making it since the 80s.

Dance music too. And electronic. And r&b. And glam rock. Looking at her wiki page.

nah, she's a pirate.

If there was no Lady Gaga, she'd still listen to exactly the same number of hours of music a day, except it would be something else.

Nah, when new music by Lady Gaga comes out, she makes a special effort to listen to it. She could enjoy something else- but less so.

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We is the government and whether or not they got to make their decision backed by popular vote, they're still reasonably democratic and if they say the taxes are X then that's what taxes you OWE.

Reread your sentence. 'We' are not the state, and the practice of renaming activities otherwise despicable as something pleasant and benign is completely Orwellian. You're basically cominging an argument from force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_f rom_force) and an argument from law. The Government can commit acts of extortion because they say so is not an acceptable excuse by any standard.

And Define 'reasonably democratic'. They are not democratic by my standards. And if people spent the time to think how many individuals actually get what they want in a democracy they would come to the same conclusions.

That's what a democracy is. There's no choice that is 100% backed up.

Yes, if you go into a store and buy a jug of water, the provision of your water for you is 100% backed up. If everyone does the same thing for themselves then the provision of water insofar as it is done voluntarilly is 100% backed up. There are no conflicts of interests among traders and so you don't have situations where one person's buying patterns compels the buying paterns of another individual or group of individuals. Most industries, even one's heavily regulated and thus cartelized are not duopolies. The worst case scenario like between something as unfair as... say... Mac Versus PC is STILL more democratic than the electoral process.

Again, elections are TERRIBLY undemocratic by market standards. and applying this 'majoritarian'-absolutism to all matters of life would justify any private institution with a fairly large market share to simply declare itself a 'state'.

And again there you go

Cry me a river.

You answer my claims with a "so you assume that" and then go on to explain why that is false even though I never said it thus wasting many many words : O

Second, I do not contend that 'might makes right'.

You have contended that if a politician can accumulate the greatest amount of votes, it is liscence for him or her to do whatever he pleases. I.e. the Strongest and more powerful have a right to rule, even if the votes were cast on the expectations that he would pursue a completely different policy, or wasn't based on matters of policy what-so-ever.

"We is the government and whether or not they got to make their decision backed by popular vote, they're still reasonably democratic and if they say the taxes are X then that's what taxes you OWE"

That's pretty weird coming from a moral relativist.

*Nihilist

Again your gripe always comes in the form of pointing out how X thing was done badly by the government, therefore proving governments are inherently bad somehow.

You do the same thing with private entities so we're even. Except I mentioned charities only because you did. Government aid to the poor was, has been, and very likely will continue to be provided abysmally poor by private standards. In short; You - "We Need Taxes to support the poor" Me - "Gov Sucks at taking care of the poor, your point is invalid" You - "That doesn't mean government's inherently bad somehow"

No, the inherently bad nature of Government comes from the double standard of legitimate property acquisition and the ability to act unregulated by market forces (That is, the demands of the relevant society) with virtually unlimited funds.

The reason Government is abysmal at taking care of the poor is the same reason it's abysmally poor at taking care of anything else; You cannot choose to opt out of paying into a government program that you find does not satisfy your demand, and instead patronize a better firm, thus forcing the government institution to either reform or go into bankruptcy (At which point it's capital is acquired by the more efficient firms and society progresses forward).

And why is that? Because people like you insist that society has a duty to pay it's "Taxes"

No, I meant you can't evaluate what a Monet painting is worth based on how much paint it took to make it.

Um... Yeah. Exactly. I'm glad we can finally agree on imputation.

Then you don't buy it.

Oh ok I'll just grow my own food using the shovels I built in my lavish leaf and mud mansion.

Or go visit the other dozen stores in your area, Or, if you think you could easily out compete the local stores given their shoddy quality get together with some like minded friends, build up some capital, and make killer profits with a store of your own.

Of course you'll need a grocers liscence, you'll probably have to fill out hundreds pages of paperwork for the zoning rights, for hiring workers... Etc.

Or, you can vote for the other party and hope your choice pan's out because you're stuck with the bastard for the next two-six years.

Do you opt out of buying water often?

You're conflating the demand for a good industry-wide with the demand for a good from a firm. I don't HAVE to buy water from any one firm. I do HAVE to drink water, but which individual firm is actually going to provide that water is a matter of personal choice, and there are no instances where the government offers you more choice than a (largely) competitive industry, so your argument is again moot. You very likely HAVE to buy a government service, say, 1st class mail, but only under statist conditions do you HAVE to buy 1st class mail service from a government franchise monopoly or from the government itself.

That in no way, shape or form applies to Microsoft until well after Gates was rich, as far as I know.

And how far do you know?

If you were dying of cancer, suddenly you'd be all for more government involvement in cancer cures.

Yeah, and If i lived on Mars i would suddenly think that the Sun and the planets revolved around mars. What is your point? I know that social class affects world outlook, but I don't give a damn. It has no affect on what you can prove is logically or factually true.

I am pointing out that there exists a double standard in what society subjectively feels is acceptable behavior for civil society versus the state.

Yeah taxes are kind of like theft.
But did you ever hear the story of Robin Hood? He was a thief too.

Yes, he stole from The Stately class, the Nobels and clergy, (who claimed huge ammounts of territory by right of blood, god, or conquest, and demanded those who farmed the land pay rents to live on that land, and that such arrangement that they would force the peasants to accept their protection and conscript them into their armies at will was acceptable as you seem to think it is for the present state of affairs.) And gave it back to the peasant class, the people who homesteaded and produced the goods.

You're the one using appeals to emotion now, saying "wow this is theft and theft is bad!". The world is nuanced and there's no easy answers to "is theft always bad".

I don't believe in morality. I can't prove that something is deontologically bad or evil. I CAN legitimately call people hypocrites for having a double standard on what constitutes acceptable behavior for human beings, and those human beings that wear funny uniforms waving magic scrolls in the air and calling themselves 'State'.

Let me quote myself from earlier.

"I don't argue from morality when I say that Taxation is theft, even though it is (theft). I am pointing out that there exists a double standard in what society subjectively feels is acceptable behavior for civil society versus the state."

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At 5/5/10 09:50 AM, Ytaker wrote:

This is the internet. They have blogs. They complain.

Can't be serious...

While many people might benefit from advertisement behind them, that doesn't mean that there aren't greats

The point is that with advertising and branding you can make something like the Spice Girls international superstars.

Advertisement follows success.

Depends for what.

You may remember things like, how the beetles had severe difficulty getting a record company to listen to them, or how hard JK Rowling had to work to get her manuscript heard?

That's weird because based on your theory, they should immediately get noticed for their genius rather than have to convince people they're good based on how much money they can bring in.

You know what else spreads by word of mouth? Internet memes. Stupid, random bullshit that a guy patches together in 5 seconds and shits on the web where it gains a cult following because of a snowball effect with fans.

I'm not saying music is just random, but there's clearly some involved.

It's just painfully obvious anyway, why am I still arguing about this?

Dance music too. And electronic. And r&b. And glam rock. Looking at her wiki page.

Yeah, pop music.

At 5/5/10 09:44 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

The Government can commit acts of extortion because they say so is not an acceptable excuse by any standard.

The moment you can't stop them from doing it is the moment they can do anything they want and you have nothing to say about it.

And Define 'reasonably democratic'.

You can kick the leaders out by vote.
That's reasonably democratic.

Yes, if you go into a store and buy a jug of water

I'm talking about state decisions.
There's never been a 100% approval by the people of anything as far as I know.

Again, elections are TERRIBLY undemocratic by market standards.

This makes no sense when the market can have monopolies which are the exact opposite of democratic.

You have contended that if a politician can accumulate the greatest amount of votes, it is liscence for him or her to do whatever he pleases.

Yes and it's happened many times before.
The only thing that can stop that is the threat of violence from the people.

In matters of morals and decisions and all that shit, might makes right. Always.

You do the same thing with private entities so we're even.

Except I realize that both are run by people and the problem isn't their structure or their reason for being but the idiots making the decisions at the helm.

The reason Government is abysmal at taking care of the poor

Compared to what?

Or go visit the other dozen stores in your area

Yeah what if there's no fucking stores?
What if I live in a shithole and there's one guy who controls the town's water supply and he's got 20 men with guns with him?

Every time you answer one of these questions, you give your hypothetical dude some kind of magic advantage like "ok well you have 1000$ in your pocket so use that and move to Delaware, where there is 12 water stores who compete with each other".

You always reason based on THIS EXACT WORLD except there's no government. You assume that everything will be exactly the same forever, but just without a government.

That in no way, shape or form applies to Microsoft until well after Gates was rich, as far as I know.

And how far do you know?

Everything I've ever heard about Microsoft says Bill Gates is a shrewd self-made man who the government actually tried to PREVENT from making money by making him appear in court over anti-trust law affairs.

Where's this magic law that made Bill Gates massive amounts of money, as you claim only a government could allow?

And gave it back to the peasant class, the people who homesteaded and produced the goods.

And he was a thief.

I CAN legitimately call people hypocrites for having a double standard on what constitutes acceptable behavior for human beings

Yeah because you consider all theft equally bad, you have thus decided that it's hypocritical to be against stealing from the poor to give to the rich and yet to be for stealing back from the rich to give to the poor.

You're fine with exploitation, but not taxing.
You're against might makes right, but for money is power.
You've for democracy, but against electing

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At 5/6/10 12:25 AM, poxpower wrote:

While many people might benefit from advertisement behind them, that doesn't mean that there aren't greats

The point is that with advertising and branding you can make something like the Spice Girls international superstars.

No, it was Wannabe that did that. Their advertisement and branding was utterly ineffective in america, which very rarely accepts british products. Wannabe got them on the charts. When they broke into the american market, they managed to get to number 11 quickly on hot 100. They were the first non american artist to ever in all of history get that high. This is all on wikipedia. That shows again the weaknesses of your argument- all over advertisements had been utterly ineffective. No brand strong enough to get that high. And then, they quickly got to number 1 in the US. They were utterly unique.

Advertisement follows success.

Depends for what.

Music. They're not gonna invest a lot of money unless they think they'll make it back.

You may remember things like, how the beetles had severe difficulty getting a record company to listen to them, or how hard JK Rowling had to work to get her manuscript heard?

That's weird because based on your theory, they should immediately get noticed for their genius rather than have to convince people they're good based on how much money they can bring in.

That's not my theory. My theory is that once they have any reasonable media to sell their product, then their fanbase will be more important than any advertisement.

You know what else spreads by word of mouth? Internet memes. Stupid, random bullshit that a guy patches together in 5 seconds and shits on the web where it gains a cult following because of a snowball effect with fans.

Yes, it does. It's random though, so un marketable. You have to be able to consistantly make a good product to earn money.

I'm not saying music is just random, but there's clearly some involved.

It's just painfully obvious anyway, why am I still arguing about this?

Every single example you've given is of someone who's number one hits put them over the top.

You're arguing that you can get to the very top through advertisement. That's painfully obviously not true- to get to the very top, you need to get a lot of people to like you. And you seem to be arguing this because you hate pop, based on your dismissal of them.

Dance music too. And electronic. And r&b. And glam rock. Looking at her wiki page.

Yeah, pop music.

No, those aren't pop. Pop is notably different from electronica, or r&b, or rock. She is unique.

At 5/5/10 09:44 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

The Government can commit acts of extortion because they say so is not an acceptable excuse by any standard.

The moment you can't stop them from doing it is the moment they can do anything they want and you have nothing to say about it.

And Define 'reasonably democratic'.

You can kick the leaders out by vote.
That's reasonably democratic.

Yes, if you go into a store and buy a jug of water

I'm talking about state decisions.
There's never been a 100% approval by the people of anything as far as I know.

Again, elections are TERRIBLY undemocratic by market standards.

This makes no sense when the market can have monopolies which are the exact opposite of democratic.

You have contended that if a politician can accumulate the greatest amount of votes, it is liscence for him or her to do whatever he pleases.

Yes and it's happened many times before.
The only thing that can stop that is the threat of violence from the people.

In matters of morals and decisions and all that shit, might makes right. Always.

You do the same thing with private entities so we're even.

Except I realize that both are run by people and the problem isn't their structure or their reason for being but the idiots making the decisions at the helm.

The reason Government is abysmal at taking care of the poor

Compared to what?

Or go visit the other dozen stores in your area

Yeah what if there's no fucking stores?
What if I live in a shithole and there's one guy who controls the town's water supply and he's got 20 men with guns with him?

Every time you answer one of these questions, you give your hypothetical dude some kind of magic advantage like "ok well you have 1000$ in your pocket so use that and move to Delaware, where there is 12 water stores who compete with each other".

You always reason based on THIS EXACT WORLD except there's no government. You assume that everything will be exactly the same forever, but just without a government.

That in no way, shape or form applies to Microsoft until well after Gates was rich, as far as I know.

And how far do you know?

Everything I've ever heard about Microsoft says Bill Gates is a shrewd self-made man who the government actually tried to PREVENT from making money by making him appear in court over anti-trust law affairs.

Where's this magic law that made Bill Gates massive amounts of money, as you claim only a government could allow?

And gave it back to the peasant class, the people who homesteaded and produced the goods.

And he was a thief.

I CAN legitimately call people hypocrites for having a double standard on what constitutes acceptable behavior for human beings

Yeah because you consider all theft equally bad, you have thus decided that it's hypocritical to be against stealing from the poor to give to the rich and yet to be for stealing back from the rich to give to the poor.

You're fine with exploitation, but not taxing.
You're against might makes right, but for money is power.
You've for democracy, but against electing

---

The moment you can't stop them from doing it is the moment they can do anything they want and you have nothing to say about it.

Either what you said no no way contradicts my argument or I'm not understanding what you're saying.

You can kick the leaders out by vote.

It's harder to kick an incumbent out of office than it is to simply switch to another firm on the free market, significantly harder. You have to mobilize 51% of the voting population against them and your only option is the OTHER guy, who may or may not be an improvement. *Cough* 2004 election *cough* (And by the way I supported Bush) Just look at congressional approval ratings Versus incumbency rates. Presidents are easier to kick out but you are stuck with them for a full four years, and again, these elections are duopolistic, by market standards this is not competition.

By economic standards, when the top 3-4 firms control over 50+% of the market, it is considered an Oligopoly, by political Standards, the 2 party system controls 100% of the power, and we're supposed to call this democratic? What makes something a 'public' entity versus a 'private' entity is the supposition that the public entity is of, by, and for the people. We don't think of the monarch's army as being part of 'the public sector'. But when an institution is as unregulated by the public as the government, relative to private enterprise, one can only come to the conclusion that Either private business is not private or government is not public, or both. Or simply discard the terms like I have as being merely disingenuous and illusory.

If the DMV or the IRS or the police gives you a hard time, who do you vote for in the next election? If you go to court, who is going to judge the case, and who will be presupposed at the outset is in the right?

This makes no sense when the market can have monopolies which are the exact opposite of democratic.

1) Free market monopolies only occur in the long run if everyone (not 51% like in the State system, but close to 100%) voluntarily agrees that a single firm is superior to all others and so patronizes them, This has not happened. Monopolies themselves are incredibly rare and when they do occur there is never a complaint from consumers, cartels are far more common and I can deal with how they come about and why they don't last very long in the absence of government 'Regulation'. The equivalent of this in politics is a leader that is so successful that No one dares oppose him because he'll win an election unanimously (And unanimity is what is required for a monopoly, not 51%) An example of this might be George Washington, and of course no one complained that no one ran against Washington because no one complained that George Washington was president, the same thing applies to a free market monopoly. But again, it is extremely unlikely any firm could be that successful, because you'll always have people with particular needs and tastes, plus the fact of technological innovation shifting market share as consumers change their buying patterns, like from Kerosene to Gasoline or from oil lamps to electric light bulbs. You might get a monopoly in the early days of an industry, If I'm the first one to invent a widget, I am a widget monopoly, there's nothing insidious about this since the profits i make attract competitors and eventually bring prices down.

The monopoly in this situation is only a PROBLEM if the monopoly ceases to be competitive and decides to raise rates and restrict output, at which point the conditions that allowed that the monopoly to come into being no longer exist and competitors can enter the market and take away market share.

Government monopolies can maintain themselves indefinitely provided people [like you] share in the ideology of the state, they can make it illegal to compete with them and thus maintain their monopoly without being competitive. They're not 'out competing' their competitors, they're simply outlawing them.

2) Replacing private for state monopolies is still not an answer to the problem of the monopoly even if we grant that private monopolies are possible, which they are not.

In matters of morals and decisions and all that shit, might makes right. Always.

That the state can force people to pay taxes provided people continue to believe in the state is not grounds for saying that people should continue to believe in the state.

Except I realize that both are run by people and the problem isn't their structure or their reason for being but the idiots making the decisions at the helm.

The problem is the structure, an entity will serve the consumer, to the extent that it's income is tied to satisfying the consumer. You labor under the delusion that if we just have the RIGHT PEOPLE in the system, everything will work find.

And yet the system's STRUCTURE may be such that this can never come about, because an unscrupulous politician seeking to earn money by selling favors may have a stronger incentive to want to be in office than Joe-Good-Guy who would in-fact make a great leader, hypothetically. I'm thinking of the Soviet Union, where Joseph Stalin had the ambition and the cult of personality to execute all of his political rivals. Trying to get an angel into government begs the question of how we have a STRUCTURE such that an angel can come about, and you turn to the undemocratic election system. Of course that's not my main reason for rejecting the state.

Compared to what?

Compared to Voluntary alternatives, that do more with less money.

Yeah what if there's no fucking stores?

See above for monopoly

What if the government decides to burn you alive? what DO YOU DO THEN?

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies /appeal-to-fear.html

Of course If i made this argument I would have to explain why something like this would come about instead of making an objection to the state based upon an unrealistic hypothetical. If I argue that the State sucks at providing X service, i either provide a concrete example or explain logically why it has no incentive to do better than a private alternative, or both. You do neither, you just PRESUPPOSE something like this would occur, without logic or empirics.

So first explain to me how a situation where, people, acting voluntarily, would produce this doomsday scenario and then tell me how it would be better under a state. Because As i see it even in the least competitive of private industries, there is more competition than for state services.

Continued on the next post....

---

Everything I've ever heard about Microsoft says Bill Gates is a shrewd self-made man who the government actually tried to PREVENT from making money by making him appear in court over anti-trust law affairs.

I have here a book on Anti-trust, mentioning Microsoft. It's also on PDF So I'll do some Copy-pasta of that from google books.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_YaS18_
3nlQC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=the+mock-tri al+case++that+project+sherman+thomas+dil orenzo&source=bl&ots=OtjiK7fv3h&sig=nPfG 0I8IVNUTicfr9P-o8asGerE&hl=en&ei=lHLjS6X kAsH78Aaw0YmuBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=r esult&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage &q&f=false

Again my point on monopolies is that if someone is accused of being a free market monopoly, it's not because they are shafting the consumer, otherwise the problem would be solved. But here are the HORRIBLE allegations against the evil Microsoft company... I'm paraphrasing from my book because google book skips this page.

'the mock trial case that project Sherman presented was essentially what the government put on... Judge thomas adopted the conspirators claim that microsoft was a monopoly even though in some markets such as software applications it had literally thousands of competitors, he claimed that Microsoft coerced it's customers but did not explain what power gates had -- or any business has, to achieve such coercion on the free market. Jackson also claimed that consumers were somehow harmed because Microsoft its web browsers away for free'

There's more stuff Here which i can quote if i have to but it's Late and I'm tired. My point is that Microsoft's market share, at the time at least, was EARNED, since it was satisfying demand. Given your pro-state Bias, if a politician was so sucessful that he garnered, say... 90% of the vote, would you then call him a monopolist and demand anti-trust take a hand?

And gave it back to the peasant class, the people who homesteaded and produced the goods.

And he was a thief.

Thank's for clearing that up for me. I don't really care that he was a thief.

I CAN legitimately call people hypocrites for having a double standard on what constitutes acceptable behavior for human beings

Yeah because you consider all theft equally bad, you have thus decided that it's hypocritical to be against stealing from the poor to give to the rich and yet to be for stealing back from the rich to give to the poor.

But the state does not steal from the rich and give to the poor, you pointed this out yourself

And again this falls back on the utilitarian arguments for Welfare statism. Productivity declines when people realize they can make more money by lobbying the government for free money than by voluntary trade and selling people things that they want, this goes from the biggest corporations and the smallest poor person. This is what has culminated in Greece, people have become so dependent on a government providing them with what even the government itself does not have (Instead of producing goods wanted on the market) They take to the streets and murder each other.

And again I've already made the case that government giving money to the poor (For Charity's sake and for improving the lot of the deserving poor, not simply for Egalitarian objectives) is less effective than allowing private charity's to function without being crowded out by Taxes that most usually fall on the up-and-coming-rich rather than people whose 'income' is usually Tax-free anyway, since most of the money filters through the hands of Bureaucrats before it eventually 'trickles down' to the masses. So the utilitarian argument for a redistribution of wealth remains to be made properly.

You're fine with exploitation, but not taxing.

I do not consider any voluntary entity existing on the market as being coerced and thus I do not consider it exploitation. And you accuse me of putting words into *your* mouth.

You're against might makes right, but for money is power.

I don't think it is legitimate for a corporation to call itself a state simply because it has a lot of money if that is what you mean, nor do i think this could occur. Money is power but power alone doesn't make you the state. Mother Theresa had a great deal of 'power' in the sense that she exerted a great deal of influence over people but as far as I know she was not a state.

And I'm not simply against might makes right, I'm against any claim that something OUGHT be done because it is moral. I do not believe in Morality, period. I will only be convinced that something OUGHT be done when it is shown that the consequences of the actions are socially beneficial. Welfare statism is, in the long run, not socially beneficial.

And i define social benefit by Pareto optimality.

You've for democracy, but against electing

I'm for individual sovereignty, everyone gets to chose who provides their services, but they do not get to force others to accept the services of others simply because they chose that person. If i voted for Bob Bar and you voted for Obama, and by some miracle Bob Barr won, It would be an aggression against you for me to say that Anything Barr says is now the law that you have to follow, and that It is thus OK for the state to gun you down if you refuse to obey Barr's laws.

Or to put it another way, I don't think from a consequential point of view, that we should have a single monopoly National magazine, and we vote majority rule on who gets to be the editor of the magazine and thus put the content in the magazine. And most people would agree with me on this particular issue that running magazines like a modern "democracy" with elections in this manner would be idiotic, they very likely wouldn't know why or they wouldn't have the courage or intellectual consistency to consider the reasons for why this is a bad idea applied to the political system they have been conditioned since childhood to accept. We (And by that i mean individuals in society) don't vote winner-take-all-majority-rules on what foods we eat, what television shows we watch, what clothing we wear, etc.

My position is basically the same as Friedman's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMb_72hgk Jk

Accept Friedman was a Minarchist and I'm not, so I do not agree with him that democracy is effective for solving unimportant problems. Of course I can't help but admire Friedman, usually when people get older they become more conservative and more Senile. Friedman became more sensible in the last years of his live and eventually advocated abolishing the fed, but that's an off topic issue.

---

At 5/6/10 01:30 PM, Ytaker wrote:

That's not my theory. My theory is that once they have any reasonable media to sell their product, then their fanbase will be more important than any advertisement.

That's what I said: you need the distribution network.
That's how you make the money. You have to market yourself and be business-savvy on top of being good and then you make cash.

If you're just good, you make no cash.

You're arguing that you can get to the very top through advertisement.

Yeah you can.
Notice the lack of the word "alone" after "advertisement" ?

At 5/6/10 09:24 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Either what you said no no way contradicts my argument or I'm not understanding what you're saying.

It's pointless to be right if you can't enforce your point of view.

You can kick the leaders out by vote.

It's harder to kick an incumbent out of office than it is to simply switch to another firm on the free market,

That's a nonsensical comparison.

If the DMV or the IRS or the police gives you a hard time, who do you vote for in the next election?

You go to court.

1) Free market monopolies only occur in the long run if everyone (not 51% like in the State system, but close to 100%) voluntarily agrees that a single firm is superior to all others and so patronizes them, This has not happened.

Or if, say, some guy has captured you as his indentured servant and you have to buy food at the company work camp.

No that never could happen!

Monopolies themselves are incredibly rare

But do happen.

The monopoly in this situation is only a PROBLEM if the monopoly ceases to be competitive and decides to raise rates and restrict output, at which point the conditions that allowed that the monopoly to come into being no longer exist and competitors can enter the market and take away market share.

If I control the water supply for a town, there's no competitors. I can charge whatever I want.

There's no natural market solution to a cartel or many kinds of monopolies. Only violence.

2) Replacing private for state monopolies is still not an answer to the problem of the monopoly even if we grant that private monopolies are possible, which they are not.

A state monopoly can serve the people whereas a market monopoly serves a select few individuals.

And yet the system's STRUCTURE may be such that this can never come about, because an unscrupulous politician seeking to earn money by selling favors may have a stronger incentive to want to be in office than Joe-Good-Guy who would in-fact make a great leader

You countered my "it's because they make stupid decisions" argument by going "yeah but WHAT IF THEY MADE STUPID DECISIONS! haha!".

Compared to Voluntary alternatives, that do more with less money.

Brilliant. You're right, the government does do less well than an hypothetical system that does better than it!

What if the government decides to burn you alive? what DO YOU DO THEN?

Nothing, you're fucked.

So first explain to me how a situation where, people, acting voluntarily, would produce this doomsday scenario

What doomsday scenario?

At 5/6/10 10:19 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: My point is that Microsoft's market share, at the time at least, was EARNED

Congratulations on proving yourself wrong.

Remember when you said that large fortune such as his could only come about through government intervention? And I said "bullshit"?

But the state does not steal from the rich and give to the poor, you pointed this out yourself

They do redistribute money from richer people to poorer people. I never said otherwise.

Productivity declines when people realize they can make more money by lobbying the government for free money

SImilarly, the entrepreneurial spirit rises when people have a safety net on which they can fall back if their ventures should fail.
And people can more freely pursue better employment when they're not held hostage by their employer.

NOOOOO PROS AND CONS DAMN YOOOOOOOU

And again I've already made the case that government giving money to the poor (For Charity's sake and for improving the lot of the deserving poor, not simply for Egalitarian objectives) is less effective than allowing private charity's to function

I've never heard of a country where private charities take care of everyone that needs taking care of like the government can.

I do not consider any voluntary entity existing on the market as being coerced and thus I do not consider it exploitation.

You're a nutbar, saying this knowing full-well there's still slavery on this planet.

Mother Theresa had a great deal of 'power' in the sense that she exerted a great deal of influence over people but as far as I know she was not a state.

The Vatican is.

People with money can BUY power. Historically, you could do it directly and outright buy yourself the title of Baron or Duke or whatever shit.
Now you just need to bribe elected officials.

But once again, money is power and in the world there's only two ways to get what you want:

- Boycott
- Revolt

There's no system where only boycott can work and no one wants a system where only violence can work.

I'm for individual sovereignty, everyone gets to chose who provides their services,

Maybe in the Matrix, but not in the real world.

Or to put it another way, I don't think from a consequential point of view, that we should have a single monopoly National magazine, and we vote majority rule on who gets to be the editor of the magazine and thus put the content in the magazine.

You can't have a competing government in a country. You can't have 30% of people believe it's ok to raze the rainforests and 70% who don't and just let them do whatever they want.

That's crazyness.

If you let people organize truly democratically, in time you'll find the same problems religions have: infinite branching. Every time some dumbass was a sore loser and wanted to start a better movement, he'd split and create his own church.

If governments worked that way, we'd all be moving backwards to tribal societies where every piece of land has its own zany laws.

And on a global scale we'll be facing a disaster worse than we're facing now with global warming. Capitalism has a short, short sight and that's not too great for us. We can do better.

---

http://law.jrank.org/pages/4361/Antitrus t-Law-Origins.html

Monopolies are rare?
Cartels can just be competed with?

Laissez-faire capitalism was tried for 200 years and the result was mass abuse by cartels.

Cartels are the inevitable result of capitalism.

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At 5/6/10 11:40 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 5/6/10 01:30 PM, Ytaker wrote:

That's not my theory. My theory is that once they have any reasonable media to sell their product, then their fanbase will be more important than any advertisement.

That's what I said: you need the distribution network.
That's how you make the money. You have to market yourself and be business-savvy on top of being good and then you make cash.

No, you said, once they're in the distribution network, advertisement can push a good artist up to the top.

I'd agree that getting someone richer to sell your product is important, but that's far, far away from becoming an A list celeb. Once you're in the organisation, to go up you need to sell stuff.

You really don't have to market yourself or be business savvy. What you have to be is seen as friendly, attractive, a good singer, to a lot of fans. Most celebs have very little business or financial talent, something you can see by looking at their behaviour. Once they're famous, once they sell a lot of things, people advertise for them.

Yeah you can.
Notice the lack of the word "alone" after "advertisement" ?

You've ignored your point, and my response- the celebs you mentioned became famous due to their talent, due to number one hits, before their distribution networks advertised for them. Objectively, your argument didn't happen. Your extremely pessimistic view of humanity is wrong.

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Well, they have every right to your money, the government should be allowed to have sex with your mother if it so wants. lol :P jk

---

It's pointless to be right if you can't enforce your point of view.

Aside from the incredible degree of Totalitarian narcissism in this statement... If government is wrong it is still permitted to enforce it's view, (If i understand this argument correctly) Ideas are meant to compete voluntarily.

Ex; with respect to the superiority of a particular philosophy on, say, how a business should be run, some maverick implements it into their own lives and if it is truly the correct way, or a better way, it is adopted by others. Those that make the change benefit and those that don't lose out.

If an idea has to be imposed by force, like yours, it is more likely than not because that idea is inefficient, outdated, and unsustainable. If it was truly a superior mode of human organization, people would chose it over alternatives voluntarily.

You go to court.

*State Run Court*, where the superiority of the state is presupposed at the outset. Most people don't trust companies to run their own regulating boards, (and No, I do not trust companies to run their own regulation organizations, I Do trust voluntarily funded, third party organizations with good reputations) It would be Utopian to think that the state could regulate themselves through monopolization of the courts.

And here you are saying that it is disingenuous for me to argue that people can change things on a free market by arguing that there are evil monopolies and cartels everywhere that give consumers no recourse... then telling me that Government monopolies are OK because we can always fall back on the government run courts... What Bullshit.

Or if, say, some guy has captured you as his indentured servant and you have to buy food at the company work camp.

Now we're going to go back into the whole pure marginal state argument. no, a state/corporation cannot maintain itself by force alone. Though it may be possible in the short run for a company to kidnap someone and force them to pay for something, in the same way an individual can commit common robbery, the risk to a company of people finding out about it and the ensuing scandal would cost the company more in falling sales than gained in petty robbery. On a more macro scale, the argument you continue to ignore remains the same.. The force cost of suppression of a population is necessarily greater than the tax revenue that can be extracted, for example, the cost of the Iraq, Afghan, and Vietnam wars were waged with costs significantly more than the entire GDP of the country they were conquering. And if people like you didn't presuppose the benevolence of the government and simply refused to fund this foreign adventure (Like i imagine would occur as Boycotts of an insidious corporation would keep an international corporation from wanting to wage war and become a state) The loss of revenue would make these ventures impossible. So it's only if people share an ideology like yours or some Statist equivalent that would enable the kind of scenario you are trying to argue could happen.

What makes a company different from the state is, at it's core, ideology. And what makes private companies function differently is this ideology that compels companies to behave not like states but like, private companies. If private companies could convince... say... 300 million people that they were a 'legitimate state' and thus it is legitimate for them to extract taxes through coercion, then you would have a state. But i do not believe that a State of this kind could emerge De Novo. Of course YOU are more than free to fund the continuation of foreign aggression.

The monopoly in this situation is only a PROBLEM if the monopoly ceases to be competitive and decides to raise rates and restrict output, at which point the conditions that allowed that the monopoly to come into being no longer exist and competitors can enter the market and take away market share.

If I control the water supply for a town, there's no competitors. I can charge whatever I want.

And how does one GET to control the water supply of a town. You just assume that a company pops into the world with a monopoly without having to be competitive or having to have a good reputation. The way a free market deals with this problem is that home owners associations will sell contracts to companies to maintain water utilities or run the utilities themselfs. A home owners association has no incentive to screw home owners with high water prices because their primary revenue comes from selling houses and maintaining/improving house value. If consumers know that a particular HOA is running an oppressive utility system no one will want to buy in a neighborhood and the HOA will incur loss of property value, basically killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

The government at present solves this problem by arbitrarily giving franchise monopolies to utilities, so they are the institution to look to when asking why it is that a company can randomly be given legally monopolistic control of a resource. So we are again stuck with the obviously present state monopoly versus your 'What if' free market monopoly. So we get things like Amtrak, the 'Phone Company', Cable Television, etc.

A state monopoly can serve the people whereas a market monopoly serves a select few individuals.

Why? Democracy? We already went over that. You're just presupposing the benevolence of the state and the evil intentions of a private institution, yet again.

And yet the system's STRUCTURE may be such that this can never come about, because an unscrupulous politician seeking to earn money by selling favors may have a stronger incentive to want to be in office than Joe-Good-Guy who would in-fact make a great leader

You countered my "it's because they make stupid decisions" argument by going "yeah but WHAT IF THEY MADE STUPID DECISIONS! haha!".

No, I'm saying that to argue that it's all about who is in charge is a self defeating argument because it automatically begs the question of how we get those angels to run the country in the first place, which is a question of political structure. So **even if** the key is leadership, we still need to figure out how leadership comes into being.

Of course leadership isn't simply the key, and I already explained why.

Brilliant. You're right, the government does do less well than an hypothetical system that does better than it!

Private charity already exists and already amounts to a considerable proportion, albeit not a majority, of the care provided for the poor, not only in this country but in countries around the world. So no, the welfare system i advocate is not purely A priori, it certainly isn't as A priori as your system, in which you presuppose the state has the incentive to care for the poor, Except your system isn't backed by any sort of logic, it's just backed by presupposition and appeals to emotion.

I have no problem with A priori reasoning though, as long as the premises are true the statement is necessarily true.

Continued on the next post.

---

What doomsday scenario?

Monopoly.

Remember when you said that large fortune such as his could only come about through government intervention? And I said "bullshit"?

I said that **Obscene** profits can only come about with the state, not profits in general.

If I for instance, invent a motor that can run on static electricity in the air or something (John Galt reference) And had the temporary monopoly period, without any state aid, i could probably make millions if not billions. But i would be doing this only as a result of me enabling people to improve the efficiency of billions of people around the world, dramatically improving standards of living. Likewise this is the legacy of the personal computer and of the internet, and of the substantial improvements in oil refining that occurred under the management of Rockefeller. (Who, prior to becoming a political entrepreneur, significantly reduced the prices of Kerosene to former levels, and yes, it is possible to earn 'profit' this way)

Unlike those that regard the accumulation of wealth as evil regardless of the circumstances, I care how the money was made. The profits are only obscene if they come about in such a way that they do not add to the value of society. The examples i gave above, including early Microsoft, added considerable value to society. And so when I said that obscene profits do not occur on a free market, I was not contradicting what I said now, Obscene profits do not include all profits, profits have a function in society - they act as a signal for other entrepreneurs to move goods from one to save time I'll refer you to a 3-4 minute video that basically says What i would say if i decided to explain why not all profits are obscene profits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU9xVseel Vk

They do redistribute money from richer people to poorer people. I never said otherwise.

You complained about the in egalitarian nature of the present tax system As i recall. You pointed to the tax brackets.

And I am willing to bet that the money the state gives indirectly to the rich in the form of subsidies, bailouts, and undeserved profits caused by legal barriers to entry probably takes more money from the lower 80% than they get from the government in the form of taxes (Which no intelligent rich individual is actually going to pay in full, they'll do what they can to avoid paying taxes through the various loopholes and avoidance mechanisms, such as doing work in the form of gifts or cash payments that are tax free) The only exception to this is perhaps public employees, but I don't think the point of this whole egalitarian movement is to line the pockets of public employees.

Regardless, even if we contend that the short term distribution of immediate wealth from rich to poor does actually occur on net, I've already stated that Egalitarianism is not an end in itself.

The entrepreneurial spirit rises when people have a safety

Um... No? Not at all?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazar d

It makes them care-free as to the consequences of their actions, with the knowledge that the consequence for their actions are externalized. Entrepreneurs ARE risk takers, but you're advocating a social safety net for those of lower income that do not forgo consumption and do not typically commit to investments like entrepreneurs do. So you seem to be backpedaling from lower class workers to 'entrepreneurs' Regardless, artificial safety nets will encourage recklessness, not hard work.

And people can more freely pursue better employment when they're not held hostage by their employer.

The tendency for people to be held hostage is in no way improved by the state. And that you don't realize this is scary. The obvious form this takes is through business licensing which restricts the number of competitors, and thus offer people more employment options, and makes it harder for workers to start their own businesses.

Also, the State laws which make health care tax exempt from the payroll taxes mean that employers are better off offering health insurance for employees than simply raising their pay (And on a free market, if 1000$ of health insurance given to an employee equaled 1000$ given to the employee in cash, we would expect employers to simply offer more money to employees to buy health insurance that fit their needs rather than offer health insurance plans themselves (and we would expect employees to prefer this arrangement if the health insurance was equivalent in dollar terms to the extra pay), but to remain competitive businesses must offer these plans because of the tax exempt status. Yet it sucks for workers in a way because it ties their health insurance to their employment.

So again your point is invalid.

I've never heard of a country where private charities take care of everyone that needs taking care of like the government can.

1) This is an appeal to tradition argument. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies /appeal-to-tradition.html

2) It's called crowding out. When the state claims it wants to help the poor, this is generally looked upon as popular because people don't want to APPEAR like cold hearted bastards and most people do not understand economics or can argue economically against the welfare state, so taxes are raised, disposable income falls and the desire to help the poor falls, both because people have less money and because they feel less inclined to help the poor when 'The state is doing it'. The 'free to use' argument applies to charity equally with education. I put this link up before but I'll bring it back encase you forgot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsfXbZiND HE

there's still slavery on this planet.

We already went over slavery and you have not responded as far as i can recall to my rebuttals.

The Vatican is.

Yes, to a degree the Vatican is a state. Which I oppose.

People with money can BUY power.

For virtually everyone in the middle ages Wealth came from being in the nobility and thus having that power to begin with, not the other way around. It was something you were almost always born into, not purchased.

And again I've already gone over the 'State de novo' narrative.

And plus, you're not even arguing anymore that States themselves are good, you're just saying that private entities can BECOME states.

- Boycott
- Revolt

Yes, and i would advocate using both of these against oppressive companies or antiquated States like ours as a means of regulating them out of existence. But the state and statists do not want people to use these means to reform the government. They do not want us to boycott the state or to secede, they want us to vote for the candidates they present us and continue to pay our taxes.

Continued on the next post.

---

There's no system where only boycott can work and no one wants a system where only violence can work.

Yet that is the root of statism is it not? Government threats of violence. Negative enforcement occurs MORE often on a free market than in states. Bad companies are removed through consumer action, bad governments are removed through violence. (No, not through shitty monopoly elections)

You can't have a competing government in a country.

You can, But I am not going to let you get away with stretching this topic over another mile so that you can respond to me in single sentences so That my replies have to cover increasing number of topics. The Government is an entity that provides goods and services, if you can't show me how a private entity cannot provide these services you can't show me how voluntarism can't replace the state. Make a thread about a particular good you think states need to provide.

If you let people organize truly democratically

Thank god we don't have monolithic religions, a unified islamic movement or evangelical movement would be disastrous.

No there's nothing wrong with diversity. Go into any cloths store or supermarket and see the wide variety of products, and then go read about stores in the soviet union or something.

Well anyway thanks for proving to me and yourself you don't actually believe in democracy as it is commonly understood. At least now you can call yourself a Monarchist or an Oligarchy/dictator supporter. Or you can openly admit that the only purpose of elections is to provide government liscence to do as it pleases without citizens actually having input into government.

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At 5/7/10 07:59 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Aside from the incredible degree of Totalitarian narcissism in this statement... If government is wrong it is still permitted to enforce it's view

If anyone with power is wrong, they're still permitted to enforce their views.
WELCOME TO REALITY

*State Run Court*, where the superiority of the state is presupposed at the outset.

People sue the state and win.
Judges and politicians get jailed. Weee.

Though it may be possible in the short run for a company to kidnap someone and force them to pay for something, in the same way an individual can commit common robbery, the risk to a company of people finding out about it and the ensuing scandal would cost the company more in falling sales than gained in petty robbery.

The slave trade flourished for thousands of years and keeps on going to this day.
Gotta love that "they'd lose money if people found out" logic.

And how does one GET to control the water supply of a town.

Guns.

Why? Democracy?

The entire point of a state monopoly is to serve the people of the state.
The entire point of a private monopoly is to concentrate the money upwards to the boss.

No, I'm saying that to argue that it's all about who is in charge is a self defeating argument because it automatically begs the question of how we get those angels to run the country in the first place

Sometimes you get good leaders, sometimes you don't.
That's life. It's the same for business. Sometimes you get a benevolent philanthropist like Bill Gates, sometimes you get a maniacal exploiter like P.T. Barnum or J.D. Rockerfeller.

in which you presuppose the state has the incentive to care for the poor

No one has any incentive to care for people who can't pay for themselves. That's implied in the word "charity".

And social security isn't a charity anyway.

What doomsday scenario?

Monopoly.

Oh yeah those things that have happened again and again from the smallest to the largest scale?
Or maybe you've decided that controlling just 90% of a resource for an entire country doesn't qualify.
After all, there's infinite amounts of ressource on the planet and everyone can just buy from the 10% that isn't controlled by the megalomaniac.

I said that **Obscene** profits can only come about with the state, not profits in general.

You didn't say profits, you said "accumulation of wealth".
You'd be wrong either way under any definition of "obscene" you can think of.

The profits are only obscene if they come about in such a way that they do not add to the value of society.

You mean like every time a cartel forms? And there's price-fixing?
Yeah that never happens without the government!

You complained about the in egalitarian nature of the present tax system As i recall. You pointed to the tax brackets.

I didn't complain about the bracket system. You did.

And I am willing to bet that the money the state gives indirectly to the rich

Again not an argument against the idea but an argument against how it's enforced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazar d

Social security and employment benefits =/= removal of risk for high finance and bailouts for banks.

So you seem to be backpedaling from lower class workers to 'entrepreneurs'

Ever heard of "small businesses"?

Yet it sucks for workers in a way because it ties their health insurance to their employment.

That's always what happens if you DON'T have affordable healthcare.
You have to keep making money or working to have your coverage for an illness that is just bad luck.

1) This is an appeal to tradition argument.

There's no developed country that I know of without a type of social net in place and no country that I know of that doesn't have such a system where private charities take care of it.

They do not want us to boycott the state or to secede

You can't secede every time you're pissed.

Bad companies are removed through consumer action

Unless they form a cartel which you apparently think is a mythic creature only seen in movies.

Make a thread about a particular good you think states need to provide.

Again you fail to understand what I said.
You can't have a competing government in a country. Either something is legal or it's not.
You can switch back and forth, but you can't have both at the same time in the same place.

No there's nothing wrong with diversity.

Depends for what.

---

Yet that is the root of statism is it not? Government threats of violence

Not really, most people participate in the social contract put forward by the government because they have a vested interested in being part of a regulated society. The "threats of violence" you're referring to really only apply a small minority of citizens who violate the contract put forth by said government.

You're free to leave the contract just like you would in an "anarcho-capitalist" society, but you have to do it on certain terms (also like in an anarcho-capitalist society).

And hey, I've got a question. If you really think the elections in this country are so shitty, then what exactly are you proposing here? Violent revolution? Because if you're going to use the electoral system in place to implement your anarcho-capitalist utopia... the irony would be just palpable.

Here's an idea, why don't you take a couple hundred thousand of like minded people such as yourself and do some seasteading. If your system really is as incredible as you suggest, then you can come back here and rub all of our faces in it (and people will probably be lining up to join your community). But if your society functions the way I predict it will, and your entire economy becomes an unstable, poverty stricken wreck, you can come back and we'll all share some beer and laugh it off. Sound good?

---

At 5/8/10 01:00 AM, poxpower wrote:

If anyone with power is wrong, they're still permitted to enforce their views.
WELCOME TO REALITY

You're not dealing in normative. You're just saying something IS, and maybe even implying that because it IS, that is the way it ought to be. If a dictator bans all forms of free speech and nationalizes the economy, that is the way things are. (Welcome to reality) That's not the way things should be from a consequential point of view.

*State Run Court*, where the superiority of the state is presupposed at the outset.

People sue the state and win.
Judges and politicians get jailed. Weee.

Rarely. Again you're presupposing the benevolence of the state at the outset, like those that presuppose god. You argue from democracy, admit that the democratic system is bad but the free market is worse for the THREAT of a monopoly (A monopoly that , then admit that democracy as commonly understood is a bad thing. Then you state that the functionality of a system depends solely on the people working in the system and not the structure of the system itself, which begs the question of how those people even come about. Why should a court want, except in the most extreme and egregious of cases, to punish members of their own institution?

The slave trade flourished for thousands of years and keeps on going to this day.
Gotta love that "they'd lose money if people found out" logic.

The slave trade was maintained ideologically for thousands of years for the same reason the degradation of women was maintained.

Prior till around the 1700s, the overwhelming majority of property was held by the state, and you could say for all intensive purposes overwhelming majority of the population itself was directly property of the state It was not until around the 1700's you saw the rise of a larger proportion of the wealth behind held by individuals outside of the state. And throughout most of history slavery existed as a result of prisoners of war, which was a product of the state, or indentured servitude as a result of indebtedness. The latter kind of slavery did not involve whole civilizations being put under the rule of a small elite and isn't the kind of slaver you are talking about. The former kind of slavery one, required a state which could raise an army (Paid at no cost or to the would-be-slave owners) and capture a large area. Ideology also helps, what allows the state to maintain it's inefficient programs or for the pope to claim he can heal the world with magic water or for slave owners to claim their right to own slaves is the same; ideology. So ancient slave labor on a large scale was still tied to the state.

Consider this, if it really is more profitable to kidnap someone, Given that the state is merely composed of human beings interested in their self interest, why hasn't some state figured out this economic law you've concocted and turn the land that they claim into a farm, they would profit handsomely from it. They as individuals have more to profit through this supposed arrangement and your Utopian notion of a state, of, by, and for the people would have never come into being.

There's a reason why the soviet union was such a basket case - Slave labor (Which is essentially what existed in the soviet union) was incredibly unproductive. In fact that was the reason that the Gulag was ended, the USSR was spending more money operating the camps than it was getting running the slaves in Siberia.

The entire point of a state monopoly is to serve the people of the state.

Why. You're just rewording your assumption.

Sometimes you get good leaders, sometimes you don't.
That's life. It's the same for business. Sometimes you get a benevolent philanthropist like Bill Gates, sometimes you get a maniacal exploiter like P.T. Barnum or J.D. Rockerfeller.

If the functionality of a system is determined by who gets in and structure doesn't matter at all, then any system will work as well as any others, because the results will necessarily be purely random. And you haven't stated what made P.T. Barnum or Rockefeller exploiters and why. And I'm guessing you've dropped the bill gates as a monopolist argument.

in which you presuppose the state has the incentive to care for the poor

No one has any incentive to care for people who can't pay for themselves. That's implied in the word "charity".

There is a demand for for a humane society, and institutions will supply that demand to the extent that it is demanded. But the reform of a state charitable institution is nearly impossible whereas there are multiple private charity institutions, all with overhead percentages and reputations much better than state institutions, for good reason. The private charity has the incentive based on the voluntary dontations of it's benefactors to operate properly. There need not be incentive to want to care for the poor, only a desire on the part of the people at large to do so. But the state takes other people's money without their permission and without even the slightest proof that they can do the job properly and so you get waste and a permanent underclass.

The profits are only obscene if they come about in such a way that they do not add to the value of society.

You mean like every time a cartel forms? And there's price-fixing?
Yeah that never happens without the government!

It doesn't, not in the long run. And since you won't listen I'm not even going to bother to say why. I'll do what you do and just say that something is as such without proof.

I didn't complain about the bracket system. You did.

You pointed to it.

Again not an argument against the idea but an argument against how it's enforced.

How something ultimately ends up is more important than how it's written on paper. Case and point - prohibition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazar d

Social security and employment benefits =/= removal of risk for high finance and bailouts for banks.

Externalizing risk leads to increased risk, always and everywhere, it doesn't matter whether you are a worker or a financier. You're trying to tell me that the knowledge that the state has money for me if i am ever employed is somehow an incentive for me to continue working, you're arguments are bordering on non-sequitors. This applies to small business owners as well, moral hazard applies to drivers, football players, classmates, everyone.

That's always what happens if you DON'T have affordable healthcare.

That's what happens when you give tax exempt status to employer health insurance dumkoff.

There's no developed country that I know of without a type of social net in place and no country that I know of that doesn't have such a system where private charities take care of it.

Yet another appeal to tradition.

They do not want us to boycott the state or to secede

You can't secede every time you're pissed.

Under a state you can't.

Bad companies are removed through consumer action

Unless they form a cartel which you apparently think is a mythic creature only seen in movies.

Watch the video on cartels. I only have 500 characters and I don't even think you'd actually think about what I write, just glaze over it throw another anecdote or non-sequitor. In short, secret price cutting, external competitors, foreign competitors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYTgwzHU6 xg

Make a thread about a particular good you think states need to provide.

You can't have a competing government in a country. Either something is legal or it's not.
You can switch back and forth, but you can't have both at the same time in the same place.

You're talking about laws, which is another service. So my statement stands.

No there's nothing wrong with diversity.

Depends for what.

Depends for ___________

---

At 5/8/10 01:59 AM, Musician wrote:

Yet that is the root of statism is it not? Government threats of violence

Not really, most people participate in the social contract put forward by the government because they have a vested interested in being part of a regulated society. The "threats of violence" you're referring to really only apply a small minority of citizens who violate the contract put forth by said government.

With the exception of direct defense, people opting out of state services and regulations has no affect on individuals within the state who chose voluntarily to continue to pay taxes to the state. If people found the social security system beneficial the state wouldn't have to make it illegal to opt out of it, and we know there are plenty of people who want to opt out of the social security system. Things like regulations can be provided by a state without having to force companies to comply if, as you say it is, the state is so munificent. All it has to do is put a seal of approval on any company that obeys it's various regulations, if you believe that people voluntarily exist under a state because they've done the cost benefit analysis then people simply wouldn't deal with anyone who wasn't approved by the federal government, yet you have the state imposing regulations that seem pointless and weren't called for anyone except the more powerful members in the particular industry for reasons obvious to anyone who understands economics.

You assume that the State is simply a legitimate competitor like any member

You're free to leave the contract just like you would in an "anarcho-capitalist" society, but you have to do it on certain terms (also like in an anarcho-capitalist society).

I don't see

And hey, I've got a question. If you really think the elections in this country are so shitty, then what exactly are you proposing here? Violent revolution? Because if you're going to use the electoral system in place to implement your anarcho-capitalist utopia... the irony would be just palpable.

I do not know precisely how the end of the state would come about, Though i imagine it would be fairly similar to what occurred in the Soviet union. When a large portion of the people do not regard the state as legitimate, they do not pay their taxes and you're left with a situation where the government must fight a guerrilla war with it's own people without any money.

Violent revolution is the second possibility, It's not pleasant to think about but our own government has done it's fair share of stirring up revolutions in foreign countries, if the US is overthrown that way then It's ironic.

One thing i Do know is that elections would never bring about the end of the state directly. You may have a Gorbachev scenario where a political leader enacts reforms that spur individuals to simply disobey the state, and so the system falls apart in the manner described above.

Here's an idea, why don't you take a couple hundred thousand of like minded people such as yourself and do some seasteading. If your system really is as incredible as you suggest, then you can come back here and rub all of our faces in it (and people will probably be lining up to join your community). But if your society functions the way I predict it will, and your entire economy becomes an unstable, poverty stricken wreck, you can come back and we'll all share some beer and laugh it off. Sound good?

Even in a situation where this would be possible, which it isn't. (To quote someone else)

"All states on the planet together function as a land cartel. For example, if the United States had a 40% flat tax, but all other states on the planet had a 10% flat tax, all of the productive people would leave the US and go somewhere else. But if all the states together raise taxes to 40%, then there is no point for the subjects of one state to go to another. But barriers between states allow for some disparity. For example, lets say that taxes in the UK all told are 50%, whereas taxes in the US are all told 40%. I'm simplifying for this example. Why don't you see every single productive briton move to the US? Well because moving is a hassle and there are immigration restrictions."

sea steading might work if States did not impose sanctions on persons or other states that they consider 'threatening' and I imagine even if a group of people decided to leave their own states (Facing significant difficulty from immigration and trying to move resources from one area to another) And we know how brutal foreign states can be to emergent 'Leftist' States as far as attempts of overthrowing them (in one way or another) can be.

Also you're ignoring that States claim every inch of the planet, even those areas which they have never touched.

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At 5/8/10 10:30 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: With the exception of direct defense, people opting out of state services and regulations has no affect on individuals within the state who chose voluntarily to continue to pay taxes to the state.

It does very much have a bearing on the individuals paying into the system, since you'd be taking what is currently a socialized system and privatizing it. Right now many services are only affordable because everyone chooses to pay into them. A national highway system, no matter how many people use it, is going to cost the same amount of money to build. Furthermore, the way our public system work in this country assures that the cost of these services are weighted more heavily on those with more disposable income, and less heavily on those with less to give. This promotes a certain level of economic stability throughout a country, where even the lower echelons of society are able to attain a reasonable standard of living. The private sector cannot produce a service that works like this, anything similar to it has been destroyed by market forces.

This is not because the government's service is inferior to the market service, rather it is because the market weight the opinions of those who have over those who don't. And those who have don't want to give to those who don't, whether or not their wealth is justified.

You assume that the State is simply a legitimate competitor like any member

The State is a legitimate competitor like any other. Or at least, is comparable to the entities that might exist in a state of Market Anarchy. There are very clearly defined borders surrounding our country. All you have to do to leave the voluntary contract is cross one of them.

I don't see

A private entity in MA also has a certain level of discretion when it comes to who they allow in their organization/city-state/whatever. The fact that most countries have restrictions on immigration is not dissimilar to the restrictions private entities would have for entries to their organization. That being said, I think you'll find that immigration regulations are actually rather lax outside of developed countries. You can get a visa to just about any African country just on the merit of being an American citizen.

When a large portion of the people do not regard the state as legitimate, they do not pay their taxes and you're left with a situation where the government must fight a guerrilla war with it's own people without any money.

Fair enough, though I doubt the US government would wage a war against it's citizens, and I think the democratic system would succeed far before something like that ever would.

Even in a situation where this would be possible, which it isn't. (To quote someone else) [quote]

Wonderful. I disagree that immigration laws are a serious barrier into most countries, but it really isn't relevant since we're talking about seasteading.

sea steading might work if States did not impose sanctions on persons or other states that they consider 'threatening'

I didn't just make this idea up. People have actually made sovereign nations at sea. Sure the most of the world might not recognize you as a legitimate country, but who cares? They'll leave you alone. They really don't give a shit about some experimental seastead economy with no natural resources and no slave labor to exploit.

go to http://seasteading.org/ .

---

At 5/8/10 09:55 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

You're just saying something IS, and maybe even implying that because it IS, that is the way it ought to be.

Yep and nope.

Rarely. Again you're presupposing the benevolence of the state at the outset, like those that presuppose god.

It's a system, it's not benevolent or malevolent and the people running it are rarely all good or all bad. They make great decisions and they make bas decisions but they do allow for a system where you can challenge the decisions without resorting to violence.

Then you state that the functionality of a system depends solely on the people working in the system

No it doesn't since you can't overturn its laws easily. The elected officials have to obey the previous laws, they can't change them on a whim.

And throughout most of history slavery existed as a result of prisoners of war, which was a product of the state,

Today slavery is still committed by private companies and individuals in countries where it's outlawed. Have fun blaming that on the state anyway like you do for all things.

Consider this, if it really is more profitable to kidnap someone, Given that the state is merely composed of human beings interested in their self interest, why hasn't some state figured out this economic law you've concocted

What law? That slavery is profitable in some instances?
Yeah where could I have dreamed up that one huh?

If the functionality of a system is determined by who gets in and structure doesn't matter at all, then any system will work as well as any others

No one said the structure didn't matter.
But there's no structure that is impervious to a major asshole.

There is a demand for for a humane society, and institutions will supply that demand to the extent that it is demanded.

See now you're chucking "humane" demands in with capitalism.
Guess what, there was a demand for slavery too and that drove it for a pretty long while until those who did not have a "demand" for slavery said "hey quit that shit" to those who did have it.

But the reform of a state charitable institution is nearly impossible

Except it's not... :o

whereas there are multiple private charity institutions, all with overhead percentages and reputations much better than state institutions, for good reason.

They're great except for the fact that they don't help everyone, which is pretty much all we care about.

Again where's that society where there's no social net offered by the government and yet there's private charities tending to the needs of the people?

When did that EVER happen?

It doesn't, not in the long run.

What are you talking about?
The only reason they were stopped is government intervention.

But I'm sure you have a brilliant theory about something that never happened anywhere that explains how the government didn't do anything and how eventually cartels would have disbanded and shat out purple unicorns for everyone to ride.

How something ultimately ends up is more important than how it's written on paper. Case and point - prohibition.

Yeah or, say ANARCHY.

You're trying to tell me that the knowledge that the state has money for me if i am ever employed is somehow an incentive for me to continue working

Again, show me this prosperous society that doesn't have a social net for its citizen.

Anyway you describe a system where the government has always exactly as much money as you could lose to give back to you if you should fail. Yeah that system surely would make people take insane risks all the time!

That's always what happens if you DON'T have affordable healthcare.

That's what happens when you give tax exempt status to employer health insurance dumkoff.

Again, in a country with NO AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE.

Yet another appeal to tradition.

"Hey I have a flying car! It rules"
"Ok where is it? I've never seen that!"
"What fuck you, appeal to tradition! I have it! It's in the shed..right here....it works with PROTON PACKS!".

They do not want us to boycott the state or to secede

You can't secede every time you're pissed.

Under a state you can't.

And you can't foresee any problems arising from this brilliant idea to just secede every time a group of people gets angry with a decision?

I think they have a word for that.. what is it? Oh yeah, tribalism!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYTgwzHU6 xg

This video is the very definition of retarded.
First of, great example! Candles! Yeah let's see if that works as well for offshore oil drilling. Yeah you'll drill your own oil? From where, genius?
Then it instantly goes into "then it appeals to the goverment to create barriers".

No that's bullshit. Cartels don't need a government or laws, they just sell at a loss until the competitors are driven out of business, that is when they don't control the entire possible production of something like a mine or a water supply.

You're talking about laws, which is another service. So my statement stands.

Laws are the ONLY point of a government.
Laws and enforcing the law. That's why you have a government.

You can't have competing laws at the same time in the same place. You don't both drive on the right and left side of the road and the age of consent isn't 14, 16 and 18.

No there's nothing wrong with diversity.

Depends for what.

Depends for ___________

Political parties for instance.
500 is worse than 50 which is worse than 10 which is probably better than 2.
Languages. Names for things. Measuring conventions, building codes etc. etc. etc.

And in a more general sense, too many choices paralyze people. Having 5 choices is good. Having 50 is tedious.

Some diversity = good
Too much diversity = bad

---

And here's the low-down on anarcho-capitalism.

It bases power on the power to boycott.

That means that the people with the most money are the people with the most power.

One citizen = one vote?

No fuck that !

X dollars = X votes!

And you have the balls to say that's democratic? Well on a dollar per dollar basis it is since every dollar is worth as much as another!

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At 5/8/10 04:12 PM, poxpower wrote: And here's the low-down on anarcho-capitalism.

It bases power on the power to boycott.

That means that the people with the most money are the people with the most power.

One citizen = one vote?

No fuck that !

X dollars = X votes!

And you have the balls to say that's democratic? Well on a dollar per dollar basis it is since every dollar is worth as much as another!

Actually, it bases power on the power to consume. The rich people have far more voting power on things like parties, high quality fashion, corporate jets, but less on other matters. It's the middle class that really benefits. Rich people buy expensive things. They don't buy large numbers of things.

Besides, under any system of governance, money buys votes. In congress, 237 are millionaires, in the senate, 40.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/110 9/29235.html

Politics just has the fun affect of making it even easier for rich people to gain immense amounts of power. It's the law that you have enormous power, not just an effect of your wealth. Barack Obama may favour wealth redistribution, but obviously, not away from his own multi-million dollar fortune. And he was, relative to the other presidential potentials, poor. Especially McCain.

Politics can really be seen best as a way for rich people to cheaply gain huge amounts of power. They refill local parties coffers, with a wink and a nod, they get endorsments, people vote for them, and they win.

---

At 5/8/10 02:50 PM, Musician wrote:

At 5/8/10 10:30 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

nything similar to it has been destroyed by market forces.

No, what it does is it promotes waste and INEFFICIENCY, when you externalize costs on some third party (Who cannot opt out of payments) and you remove the connection that a provider of a service has to the ones that actually use the service. When the builder of a public road get's it's funds from taxpayers, questions of how much should efficiently be put into the project, and where the project should be built are thrown out of the window. Where, for instance, a road gets built, is based not on the demand (or need) for a road, but by who can secure the most amount of pork for his district, thus spending extravagantly in areas that do not need roads and visa versa. States that are influenced by such interests as construction contractors may also permit the construction of roads which need constant and unnecessary levels of maintenance which cost more in the long run but keep said contractors employed for longer, or working very slowly because they are paid per hour or something, thus harming the flow of traffic. All of these are systemic problems because the state is discalibrated and disconnected from economic reality, and even if the state can create a more nominally "egalitarian" provision of equally (poor) services for everyone, it still destroys aggregate societal value.

A lower income area may have less sophisticated roads, but this is mainly a product of people within that society choosing to allocate their resources to higher valued ends. I do not contend that all roads would be dealt with, with equal funding in a stateless society (God fucking dammit you people have to make every topic about a stateless society, it's really very cowardly), particularly given that even in a Statist society this is not the reality. (Just look at inner city infrastructure, public housing, urban planning, etc.) But that this problem could be mitigated if business owners and road companies were willing to offer some help to improve the road a bit if they found that improving the road in a neighborhood encouraged people to travel farther to their businesses in the long run even if the costs were negative in the short run.

But this inequality phenomenon occurs between states and is expected and is largely optimal, poorer governments should not have infrastructure budgets as big as richer countries, they should allocate resources according to what is most needed by relevant society, not what is lobbied for, not what looks good on international statistical ratings or meets the arbitrary standards of ivy tower intellectuals, and to do this you need a pricing system.

This is not because the government's service is inferior to the market service, rather it is because the market weight the opinions of those who have over those who don't. And those who have don't want to give to those who don't, whether or not their wealth is justified.

1) A private firm may have a smaller operating budget than a state firm when providing a service that appeals to lower income groups, but that does not mean that the private service will offer less quality to a state monopolized service, public housing as mentioned prior is a great example of this. Government run apartment projects become disgusting slums, private apartment buildings that cater to lower income groups (No, it is not profitable to market only to a single group) may have apartments that are less luxurious than the kind you'll find in NY's upper east side, but still provide more VALUE to lower income groups operating within a budget just as the private firm does. When you say that private services are provided in a non-egalitarian fashion, this may be true but it does not follow that state services for the poor will out compete private services for the poor.

2) And If presumably there are individuals who have a demand that those of diminished economic means be given a better standard of living than their incomes can IMMEDIATELY afford them, there will be organizations that can satisfy that demand to the extent that it is demanded in a manner that unlike state services does not destroy value and is 'regulated' by the immediate society.

The State is a legitimate competitor like any other. Or at least, is comparable to the entities that might exist in a state of Market Anarchy. There are very clearly defined borders surrounding our country. All you have to do to leave the voluntary contract is cross one of them.

For one, legitimate competitors do not outlaw competition, AT LEAST you can agree that some CLEARLY private goods have no excuse to be outlawed, (opting out of payments) in particular I am thinking of education, money, and most of all the mail and garbage removal services etc.

States function as a de facto cartel, although i will admit globalization has made this less and less the case. People can move from state to state, but the la raison d'entre of states is to make free choice difficult if not impossible, immigration from states is made extremely difficult, there is nothing on earth more difficult than moving from country to country as far as changes in 'buying' patterns go, and as far as i can see the worst forms of private collusion cannot come close to being able to screw citizens as badly as a government that can make immigration difficult.

But as i mentioned, globalization has made this more difficult, and there is a FEAR among statists that this is a bad thing. Since competition, being the essence of all evil in the eyes of the statists, between states is increasing when it is easier and easier to change where you live or operate a business, there are now calls for one world government where opting out of a state system is made one hundred percent impossible short of suicide, so that states never have to worry about a 'race to the bottom' where god forbid governments may actually have to reform to the demands of society like market participants.

And i believe you are under estimating the difficulty of immigration, becoming a citizen of a country may be easy but leaving another country, particularly an authoritarian one, is extremely difficult. That is, authoritarian governments are eager to receive Tax slaves but not eager to see them leave for less intrusive states.

Fair enough, though I doubt the US government would wage a war against it's citizens, and I think the democratic system would succeed far before something like that ever would.

I've dealt with the market failure of democracy in my thread socialism and democracy. If you want to understand why democratic solutions (democracy define as 'voting', not as individual sovereignty over their own lives) necessarily fail compared to market solutions, learn about public choice theory.

Wonderful. I disagree that immigration laws are a serious barrier into most countries, but it really isn't relevant since we're talking about seasteading.

sea steading might work if States did not impose sanctions on persons or other states that they consider 'threatening'

I didn't just make this idea up. People have actually made sovereign nations at sea. Sure the most of the world might not recognize you as a legitimate country, but who cares? They'll leave you alone. They really don't give a shit about some experimental seastead economy with no natural resources and no slave labor to exploit.

They don't leave their own citizens alone and i doubt they would leave people trying to leave their state em-mass to the extent that people tolerated the aggression. Americans tolerate the US Government imposing sanctions (Which is the equivalent of siege) and sending foreign agents to stir chaos in foreign lands, or make it extremely difficult for a sea society to participate in the division of labor. And i will admit that a stateless society could not live as prosperously as a statist society if every state could (With tolerance from the people) blockade all trade with the stateless society, but not because of the state.

go to http://seasteading.org/ .

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At 5/8/10 05:53 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: No, what it does is it promotes waste and INEFFICIENCY, when you externalize costs on some third party (Who cannot opt out of payments) and you remove the connection that a provider of a service has to the ones that actually use the service.

Sure, in some respects there will be inefficiencies. That's just the price you pay on the road to reaching optimal economic efficiency. You may be right in the respect that cost per unit will rise a little compared to the market equivalent, but the public highways system more than makes up for this inefficiency by basing the collection of funds on an individual basis.

Let me try and illustrate this. We have 2 men, Jim and Joe. Jim makes $1000 a month and Joe makes $10,000 a month. Lets say the roads take $1200 a month to maintain in a public system. So in the public system (since there's a progressive tax), Jim pays $100 and Joe pays $1100 every month. Anyways, eventually there's this huge revolution and everything gets privatized. In the new privatized system costs are driven down and the roads only cost $1000 a month. The only problem is, what with competition and all, the company really can't do progressive rates, it has to charge a flat fee. So from now on whenever the bills come due, Jim pays $500 and Joe pays $500.

If you view economic efficiency purely in terms of cost per unit, then you'd be right. But that's not what economic efficiency is. In economics we define efficiency as "No one can be made more satisfied, without making someone else less satisfied". And by this definition, clearly the public system is more efficient overall.

A private firm may have a smaller operating budget than a state firm when providing a service that appeals to lower income groups, but that does not mean that the private service will offer less quality to a state monopolized service

Generally, that's exactly what it means. Either it will provide a poorer service, or it will be providing a service that costs more to them than the former service. The free market isn't magic, it doesn't make labor and supplies appear out of thin air.

For one, legitimate competitors do not outlaw competition

The US doesn't have the capacity to outlaw it's competition. Other government's exist, and like I said earlier (and you seem to keep ignoring this), there aren't many barriers that will stop an American from immigrating to other countries.

States function as a de facto cartel

What are you talking about? There is no cartel of government, this a pure fantasy. Governments compete with each other all the time. Why exactly do you think poor countries in Africa have such lax regulations and immigration laws? Because they're trying to attract outside investors. They're competing with other countries for investors. This idea of all the states in the world being in collusion is patently false.

They don't leave their own citizens alone and i doubt they would leave people trying to leave their state em-mass to the extent that people tolerated the aggression.

They don't leave their own citizens alone because they're citizens of the US. Governments by definition govern their citizens, it doesn't make sense for them to "leave them alone". And like I said, the government really doesn't care about a couple of fledgling micro nations in international waters. Nobody is going to impose a trade embargo on you.

Look, in the end what you have to accept is this: you're proposed system has no empirical evidence to support it. None. And nobody wants to run with a system that hasn't been proven. So you and other proponents of your idea better start thinking of ways to test your system before we start thinking of implementing it on a national scale. Because what if we do implement it and it turns out to be a terrible system that drives our economy into the ground? Wouldn't you feel silly?

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At 5/8/10 07:19 PM, Musician wrote: Let me try and illustrate this. We have 2 men, Jim and Joe. Jim makes $1000 a month and Joe makes $10,000 a month. Lets say the roads take $1200 a month to maintain in a public system. So in the public system (since there's a progressive tax), Jim pays $100 and Joe pays $1100 every month. Anyways, eventually there's this huge revolution and everything gets privatized. In the new privatized system costs are driven down and the roads only cost $1000 a month. The only problem is, what with competition and all, the company really can't do progressive rates, it has to charge a flat fee. So from now on whenever the bills come due, Jim pays $500 and Joe pays $500.

Yeah. They used toll roads, in the past. People built them, and charged people to use them. Costed way less than 500 dollars, but it was a flat tax.

Generally, that's exactly what it means. Either it will provide a poorer service, or it will be providing a service that costs more to them than the former service. The free market isn't magic, it doesn't make labor and supplies appear out of thin air.

Government is magic, it makes labor and supplies disappear into thin air. Government has layers upon layers of bureacracy, inefficiency, slowness, and management staff.

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I haven't responded to poxpower I will do so in the future but today I have to leave in a few minutes and I won't be able to respond until monday night or tuesday evening.

Sure, in some respects there will be inefficiencies. That's just the price you pay on the road to reaching optimal economic efficiency. You may be right in the respect that cost per unit will rise a little compared to the market equivalent,

*A lot

Let me try and illustrate this.

Under a state regime this is how roads are paid for. In the case of highways, you're not going to see lower income people needing to actually invest huge sums of money in order to get the road built. Most typically someone invests in the road and it is built, and then covering the initial costs and the continued costs of maintenance are dealt with tolls and with highway advertisements like Highway 91. Admittedly the tolls are flat, but because these are priced privately they confer benefits to society that you do not seem to see, and help the poor as well as society at large in ways you do not seem to see.

For one, they are not charged on a basis of gas consumption. (i.e. the gas tax) You seem to ignore that this is a flat tax on the poor and especially those that cannot immediately afford a fuel efficient vehicle and so chose to buy older vehicles, and are thus socked with high gas taxes. The other problem with this is that it doesn't benefit society by discriminating in the important areas, where is a person driving and at what time. Gas taxes don't care if you're driving through a country road where there isn't any traffic, or if you're a car in the most congested metro area you can think of. And so this gas tax simply subsidies road building for urban commuters at the expense of rural folk.

Pricing roads on a basis of what is simply supply and demand, 1) Encourages car pooling 2) increases the demand for alternative and (non-money-pit) forms of public transportation.

Traffic congestion, which is simply a result of what you might call 'road shortages', which is the simple product of the state charging people who don't use services to lower the price for those that do use the service, confers negative externalities on all of society. In fact one can point to state subsidization of roads as primary culprits for the lack of more efficient public transportation systems being able to flourish, and of course I'm ignoring the costs of pollution.

I also see that since many lower income groups don't rely on cars at all, and instead rely on public transportation, even if a private toll road charges a bus service moving through it more than a state service (not for lack of efficiency but for the subsidization), the cost to an individual rider of a bus is probably less than a wealthier individual riding alone in a car, since the wealthier individual is being charged for the luxury of not having to sit on a bus, especially since a bus company is in a better bartering position with the highway company with respect to what sort of deals it can get.

The innovation question is also important. When the state imposes price controls by making something cheaper than it actually would cost, people no longer have an incentive to find more efficient alternatives. If someone found it unfair that Computers cost 1 million dollars in 1976 and said that taxes should pay for the provision of computers to smaller businesses that don't have that money, and so now they only cost 500 dollars and the rest is paid for in taxes, there's no reason for someone to figure out how to make a computer for 500,000 dollars and be able to sell it to a new market, or 100,000, or 10,000, and so on so on until you develop computers that can be sold to the masses. So your money pit becomes permanent.

So even if you benefit the poor in the short run by subsidizing roads which they MAY OR MAY NOT be using, you're creating shortages, stifling innovation, and creating a massive money pit for tax payers that destroys value which you cannot see.

If you view economic efficiency purely in terms of cost per unit,

Finally You underestimate how many billions of dollars of waste occur in a public system, and so you ignore that when the state spends significantly more than what a private road would cost to build, that is wealth that is being destroyed, and people are being made worse off, but that is what is NOT seen. What you do see is a road built albeit over a very long period of time. you're pretending that if you sock someone else to make a good slightly cheaper (Plus the bureaucratic waste) for a lower income person, this satisfies Pareto efficiency, it doesn't. In dollar terms you have to make society as a whole worse off just to make a few people better.

And again in the case of roads i question whether the poor are actually benefiting from the state scheme given they tend to use public transportation more often.

A

Generally, that's exactly what it means.

I've never seen a state service provided well to poor people compared to private alternatives, and this should make sense, it crowds out competition and becomes a monopoly, and ESPECIALLY in a city area, and the monopoly has no reason

You're assuming that the government can do as good a job with the same money, it never has and it never will. I already pointed out private schools and charter schools offer higher quality education for (often times) under 1/2 the cost.

The US doesn't have the capacity to outlaw it's competition. Other government's exist, and like I said earlier (and you seem to keep ignoring this), there aren't many barriers that will stop an American from immigrating to other countries.

INTRA-us, And even if you leave the United States you still have to pay US income taxes, the force is with you always. The immigration laws are more restrictive than YOU think, it's hardly different from the insurance system we have in the US between the states You can gauge the degree of competition by the elasticity of demand, small changes in price or quality tend to have large changes in revenue for competitive industries, when the government creates a health care bill over half of the country dislikes, how easily can people get out of it?

And of course your competition argument would, if held consistently, would ultimately justify increased devolution, not centralization or globalization. If you feel the existence of other states keeps states honest, which i agree is true to a certain extent, you would advocate the minimalization of state centralization and in particular things that cannot be evoided what-so-ever, such as international laws or political blocs. Why settle with 1 US when 50 US Governments (of which are often larger than unitary states like Denmark and sweden) would be even MORE competitive? Hell, why not 250.

We wouldn't call it competitive for a doctor's office to say, "well if you don't like the care I'm providing you, you can abandon your house, your friends, your family, your job, your culture and language, and go MOVE TO CUBA."

Look, in the end what you have to accept is this: you're proposed system has no empirical evidence to support it. None. And nobody wants to run with a system that hasn't been proven. So you and other proponents of your idea better start thinking of ways to test your system before we start thinking of implementing it on a national scale. Because what if we do implement it and it turns out to be a terrible system that drives our economy into the ground? Wouldn't you feel silly?

Government plans have HAD no precedent and have been unmitigated disasters and yet have not been repealed and continue to this day. Even worse, many government plans have precedent for disaster yet are implemented anyway for political reasons.

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At 5/9/10 01:34 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: *A lot

Not as much as you seem to be positing. Admittedly I don't have any econometric models on hand, but these 100% markup figures you're pushing are rubbish; patently false. Based on what I've seen from book-keeping at local community colleges / state agencies (Note: I don't claim this to be the final word on anything, but in the absence of real economic models this is what I'll base my arguments on), I'd say that there's maybe waste, but it's not huge waste. And like most private business the majority of the money is going into salary payments, which in an economy as unbalanced (in terms of where the wealth is) as this, isn't necessarily a bad kind of "waste".

Let me try and illustrate this.

Under a state regime this is how roads are paid for. In the case of highways, you're not going to see lower income people needing to actually invest huge sums of money in order to get the road built.

I was actually referring to a road that was already built, as if the road was directly handed over to private competition. If you're wondering about the high costs, I just found it easier to illustrate that way.

For one, they are not charged on a basis of gas consumption. (i.e. the gas tax) You seem to ignore that this is a flat tax on the poor and especially those that cannot immediately afford a fuel efficient vehicle and so chose to buy older vehicles, and are thus socked with high gas taxes.

Wonderful, but I don't believe that public highways and a gas tax are mutually inclusive. You may very well be making a good argument for the abolishment of the gas tax, but not so much for abolishment of public roads.

Pricing roads on a basis of what is simply supply and demand, 1) Encourages car pooling 2) increases the demand for alternative and (non-money-pit) forms of public transportation.

Which, ironically, is what a gas tax does as well. The fact of the matter is that a flat fee discriminates against those with lower money. What if public transportation isn't a viable option for a poor man? What if he works a specific trade and needs a truck to carry his tools? It just becomes another barrier into certain fields. We talked about these in the last thread remember?

there's no reason for someone to figure out how to make a computer for 500,000 dollars and be able to sell it to a new market, or 100,000, or 10,000, and so on so on until you develop computers that can be sold to the masses. So your money pit becomes permanent.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe subsides are done on a unit per unit basis, I think they're done by cost. So lets take your scenario. Lets say computer production for a whole year costs 80m and they make 90m revenue per year and the government decides to subsidize half of the production costs (which is a huge subsidy that generally wont happen, but lets just say) 40m (Net revenue 5m). So a company come up with a big innovation and now computers are much much cheaper. However, they know that if they go below a certain cost, they'll lose their subsidy. So instead of lowering their expenses, they expand their operation. So now they're still spending approx 80m a year (half of which is subsidized), but they're making 11m a year in revenue (Net revenue 7m).

So here's a break down of what I'm trying to illustrate: ((Cost of Unit) - (Price of Unit)) * (Amount Sold) = (Net Revenue). So there are 3 ways to increase net revenue. The first is to sell the same amount at a lower cost, the second is to sell more at the same cost, the third is to do both. Subsidies only really discourage the first one. So in summary I do think there are side effects of subsidies, but I think the side effects are more about companies being given incentives to expand than they are about discouraging innovation. Which admittedly can be a good or a bad thing, depending on what you're trying to encourage in an economy.

Of course the hilarious part of all this is that half way through typing all that I realized that none of this is particularly relevant to the discussion we're having. We're not talking about subsidies in the traditional sense. When I say the rich subsidize the costs of the poor I'm referring to the progressive rates that US citizens are charged for their roads. Traditional supply/demand economics aren't really relevant to government programs.

You're assuming that the government can do as good a job with the same money, it never has and it never will. I already pointed out private schools and charter schools offer higher quality education for (often times) under 1/2 the cost.

Well, you already know my stance on that. Private schools has certain discretions that public schools don't. They get to cherry pick the students who are going to be the cheapest and easiest to teach. So of course their costs are going to be lower, public schools would have lower costs if they had that discretion (Not that I think they should, I believe everyone deserves an education). But yeah, you already know what I think, I disagree with the 100% markup model you're pushing, I've seen no credible evidence to support that claim.

INTRA-us, And even if you leave the United States you still have to pay US income taxes, the force is with you always.

First off, if you don't work in the US, you don't pay US income taxes. If you're working in the US, then sorry, those are the conditions of the social contract. If you're going to take advantage of the US's services, you have to be willing to pay the costs.

Now, in terms of inside the US, you're right there is a state monopoly, just like theres a monopoly inside of any business. If you work for a company and they demand you work a certain way, do you claim it's immoral because they're imposing a monopoly on their way of doing things? No, that's ridiculous, In the end your employer makes the choice of what working conditions you have, you only have the choice of whether you want to accept them and work there or not. The US works the same way. You can choose to live inside the US and work under the US's terms, or you can move to another country and live under their terms, or you can start your own country.

Government plans have HAD no precedent and have been unmitigated disasters and yet have not been repealed and continue to this day.

Yeah, you keep saying that, e pur si muove. And there was a precedent. Before the dawn of modern society we did have what was essentially anarchy. War and conflict drove us into city-states, and eventually into nation states. Anarchy couldn't survive because any group of individuals that refused to take a side was wiped out. The very fact that Anarchy doesn't exist today is a testament to it's unsustainability.